Swissnex Gaming Jam

This is the story of the origin of the card game, Glutton and my experience at the Swissnex Game Jam held last Sunday.

This is the story of the origin of the card game, Glutton.

It all started, when I signed up for the Gaming Jam to be held as part of Swissnex’s Game Gazer Exhibition. Feeling very n00bish, I still decided to attend the session on Sunday at Swissnex India. After an Introduction, the theme was released; Indian Culture in Game Design.

I was in a 5 member team which we named as ‘Team Stark’ and it consisted of me, Murali, Debashish, Rufael and Simon. After an initial brainstorming, where we dealt with traffic(not really indian) and gods(too controversial), we narrowed down to food etiquette. This was because Simon pointed out that Indian foods would be something that a foreigner would want to learn about and there was no easy way of going about it. We brainstormed some more where we started out thinking about Game etiquette and ended up trying to conquer cities based on food knowledge. Narrowing down, we decided to make a card game and tried to figure out the game play and the game mechanics of the game.

Prototyping and Playtesting the game helped us realize the problems in the game play and also how to scale the game. Overall it was a fun experience and I will definitely try to organize one in college in the near future.

What:
A Card Game to introduce Indian Foods and Food Habits to Foreigners.

How to Play:
One set of cards is designed for a game with 2-4 players and it’s encouraged to have atleast one Indian who could help moderate the game. Each card will have information regarding the food like a photo and a calorie count. The cards would be separated into Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner cards. Each player is dealt 9 cards and this forms his ‘plate’. He needs to maximize the value of each 3 card combo before the game ends. There are special combos that can be formed which would create added value for the player. At the end of the game, the points are tallied up to judge who wins which meal.